The service where all the pictures are hosted for this thread is shutting down. I have reposted all the pictures at a different site, but GardenWeb does not allow me to edit my posts to change all the links. Here's a page with all the pictures on it. Don't miss the tiny "page 2" link at the top of the page. Here is a link that might be useful: Pictures for this thread

Depending upon which code you are under, copper may not be acceptable. If using black pipe, it ought to be coated AND taped to prevent corrosion. It's a poor choice regardless, particularly under a slab where pockets of gas may be trapped an explode. And don't forget your tracer wire. You may also want to check the legality of running this pipe yourself - in many areas, unless you are specifically licensed for this type of work, you may not do it yourself. At the very least, have the work inspected - a leaking gas line under a slab is a serious matter. There is a reason the estimate was high.

Hi Chisue, Glad you found the info useful. The $US 10,000 bid las time round I think puts you into the class two gen set area. These are good systems and popular where I live. Auto start and essentially auto everything. Good in that when the power goes out you do nothing and everything comes back on line in about 20 seconds. These units are lawn mower engine based. Typically air cooled and have two cylinders. They run fast at 3,600 rpm and are noisy. But this is not that big a deal in that this is for only a few days of running untill the power comes back on. The amount of power they can handle is about 10-12kw range. Some companies rate them higher like 15 kw, but I would say this is pushing it. Another something worth remembering is starting current. The other poster was correct in that the calculation is amount of power + some buffer. The some buffer is important. The reason why is that at start up, electric motors draw a lot more current. Can be up to 8 times as much. So to handle this surge you need a big generator head, more copper, and a heavier momentum in the engine. You can begin to see why heavier is better in generators. You have two sumps, I do not know how big these are, also the fridge. Immediately upon power restart this is when the power requirement is the largest. All your motors will be trying to start at the same time. You need to ensure that you have sufficient power to start these motors. At a guess, I think 10kw should be sufficient quite comfortably. A portable 6kw gen set may require some messing about with breakers. IE. you only start one motor at a time. Hence the power surge demand is spread out over time. The other useful thing to remember, or your electrician should know is that your generator set actually generates power as two phases. Huh? What is a phase? Imagine a smooth wave like line, in math it is a sine wave. Now imagine two of them. Just like waves on the ocean sometimes one wave is at a peak, and another wave is at a low point. Your generator will produce these two waves, two phases, and they will be perfectly out of phase with each other. One will be at the peak, while the other will be at the low point. OK now you are confused :) OK the simple thing to remember is that most things you want to power up will be a 120v one phase item. You need to try and evenly divide these items on each of the phases. Sometimes one thing is a power hungry one. This will use up a lot of power on one phase. You cannot borrow power from the other phase. Because you cannot borrow power, you have to size your generator accordingly. For example, a 12 kw generator can be thought of as two 6kw generators (one for each phase). Make sue that if you have a big power item, e.g. your cook top, that you have sufficient to power that one one of the phases. This phase thing can be confusing, and there are some items which actually do use both phases, hence what I have just said in the paragraph above may not be applicable. e.g. Some well pumps are two phased powered. Hence in general it is a good idea to have spare capacity in your generator set. This is expensive. How much spare capacity is difficult to guesstimate. My recommendation is to go for the more expensive class two gensets and stick with that. The reason why is that once you jump to class three the cost tends to almost double because of the genset weight on installation, and the genset cost itself. If you have some key big power items, e.g. you cook top that you must have running, then maybe consider a class three genset setup. From can see from your post, I do not see any big items that would reuire a class three. If you have central A/C and want to run that, then I would recommend a class three genset. May people go for a class two set up, and buy a window air conditioner which they can install and run for a few days while their central A/C is out. You also asked in your post how log you can run a genset for. Well so long as you top up the oil etc. at a shot you can run continuously untill your fuel runs out. Fuel is usually the limitation. If you are on mains gas, then almost indefinately. My genset burns at max rate such that a 500 gallon propane tank will be depleted in 5 days. Note propane tanks can only be filled to 80% capacity, so a 500 gallon tank by volume, but only 400 gallons actual LPG propane. Then your tank may not be full, say half full. So right now I have a two day burn reserve. The flip side is you do not have to run your genset 24 hours. In power outages, I only run for say a few hours for showers, heating no burst pipes etc. The rest of the time if I am out keep it shut off if I am out etc. You may want to run 24/7 however due to your sump pump and basement flooding risk. Hope this is useful, and you are not falling asleep .... All the best, Mike.

We did consider a blue to go with our pool tile and might have gone that route if the granite had any blue or the right greys in it. I found the fire pit online but had to order through a dealer. The guy there showed us the stock glass, but also larger pieces. Some are larger crumbles and others look like small ice cubes or gems. I think he called one of them liquid ice -- the name because of how it reflects the light and looks melted from the fire. He said some people us one color for most of the glass and then scatter some of a different color on top or use some clear or colored larger pieces to catch the light on top. If I recall correctly, our pit has a dish that is about 24 inches wide and not too deep. The glass just covers the burner and I think we needed 80 lbs of glass. The glass runs several dollars a pound, so it is easy enough to change out, but it may not be cheap -- especially if your contractor is building a large brick pit. I assume he will insert a pan for the burner and make it more shallow? You may want to ask about that.